Ukraine's Satellite Escape Plan Starts in Orbit
A nanosatellite launched on a SpaceX rideshare is the first move toward a communications network Ukraine can actually own.
By The space-quantum Desk
On October 1, a small satellite rode a SpaceX Transporter-18 rideshare into low Earth orbit. Its name is Obria Nano. Its makers — Ukrainian startup Himera and Danish manufacturer GomSpace — describe it as a test. In practice, it is the opening move in Ukraine's bid to stop depending on anyone else for its battlefield communications. [1]
Himera and GomSpace confirmed on October 27 that Obria Nano is operational and undergoing tests that will shape the design of a future constellation intended to provide communications coverage across Ukraine. [1] The companies have not disclosed the satellite's specifications, its communications capacity, project financing, or how many satellites the eventual network would require. What they have disclosed is the intent: a communications system under Ukrainian control, with satellites and ground terminals eventually manufactured domestically. [1]
The timing is not incidental. In mid-October, restrictions on SpaceX's Starlink and Starshield services limited satellite connectivity in ways that interfered with Ukrainian drone operations — including efforts to intercept Russian attack drones. [1] Ukraine said on October 24 that services had returned to normal operating speeds, but the episode exposed just how fragile a single-vendor dependency can be in a live conflict. [1]
The disruptions also triggered a public dispute. SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk and U.S. officials offered conflicting explanations about who had authorized the limits. [1] For a military relying on satellite connectivity for command networks, drone coordination, and communications in areas where terrestrial infrastructure has been destroyed, that ambiguity is operationally intolerable.
There is a particular kind of vulnerability that only becomes visible when something goes wrong. A network that works perfectly until it doesn't — until a policy dispute, a corporate decision, or a geopolitical calculation turns off the tap — is not infrastructure. It is a dependency. Ukraine is now, urgently, learning the difference.
Ukraine has relied heavily on SpaceX's satellite services for battlefield communications since Russia's invasion in 2022. [1] The services became essential to military command networks and drone operations across the country — a fact that made the October disruptions especially stark. Starlink's global coverage and rapid deployment made it the obvious choice in the chaotic early months of the war. Four years on, that convenience has a cost: strategic exposure.
Himera, founded in 2022, develops secure tactical radio systems for military forces, including equipment designed to operate in environments affected by electronic warfare. [1] That background matters. A satellite constellation conceived by a company that builds radios for signal-contested battlefields is not a civilian broadband project with military applications bolted on — it is designed from the threat model outward. GomSpace, headquartered in Aalborg, Denmark, manufactures small satellites, communications payloads, and spacecraft subsystems. [1] The pairing gives the Obria Nano project both the domain knowledge and the hardware pedigree to be taken seriously.
Sovereign infrastructure is one of those concepts that sounds abstract until the moment it becomes urgent. Then it sounds obvious. The question is never whether to build it — the question is whether you started early enough.
Obria Nano is one of at least two European-backed initiatives racing toward the same strategic conclusion. Five days before Himera and GomSpace made their announcement, Finnish satellite manufacturer Iceye and telecommunications equipment maker Nokia signed a letter of intent with Ukraine's Defense Ministry to explore developing a sovereign broadband satellite communications network. [1] Neither initiative is expected to replace Starlink's extensive global network — the scale and coverage simply aren't comparable at this stage. [1] But that may not be the point.
Smaller national constellations could provide dedicated communications for selected military operations while supplementing commercial services. [1] The architecture implied here is redundancy by design: Starlink as the broad commercial layer, sovereign constellations as the hardened, non-negotiable core. If one vendor throttles service — deliberately or under political pressure — the other keeps critical operations alive. It is a model familiar from financial infrastructure, energy grids, and internet routing. Space communications is arriving at the same lesson later, and under fire.
Misha Rudominski, Himera's co-founder and chief executive, framed the project in terms that go well beyond satellite engineering. "For us, this project is about more than launching a satellite. It is an opportunity to lay the foundation for an independent communications network for Ukraine," he said. [1] He continued: "We are starting by testing technologies in orbit, while our long-term goal is to develop capabilities that will strengthen the country's strategic security and reduce dependence on external communications providers." [1]
There is something clarifying about designing infrastructure under duress. Constraints that would slow a peacetime procurement process — the need to prove sovereign control, to design for electronic warfare environments, to plan for domestic manufacture — become the specification itself. Urgency compresses the roadmap.
The domestic manufacturing ambition is worth holding onto. Building satellites and ground terminals inside Ukraine, under active conflict conditions, is not a near-term deliverable — Himera and GomSpace have said nothing about timelines, and the Obria Nano tests have only just begun. [1] But the intention signals something about the long arc of the project: this is not a procurement arrangement. It is an attempt to build a national capability, not just a national service.
What neither initiative has yet answered is the question of scale and speed. A constellation capable of meaningful military coverage requires dozens to hundreds of satellites, ground infrastructure, and the command-and-control software to manage it. Obria Nano is a single test satellite. The Iceye-Nokia arrangement is a letter of intent. [1] The gap between ambition and orbital reality is measured in years and capital — neither of which the dossier discloses in specific terms.
But the Obria Nano's current presence in orbit means the test has started. Ukraine is not waiting for the perfect constellation to be designed before it begins to learn what a sovereign one might look like. In a conflict where mid-October can erase months of operational planning, starting early — even with a single nanosatellite and an unanswered list of specs — turns out to be the whole strategy. [1]